Police Witness Armed Robbery, Arrest Suspects

(Updated at 3:10 p.m.) Police arrested three men who they reportedly observed attacking and robbing a pedestrian last night.

Just before midnight on Tuesday (February 5), officers observed three individuals acting suspiciously around Wilson Blvd. and N. Monroe Street. Police say the men were walking around the area, looking into cars and loitering on the corner. They then reportedly entered a Jeep Wrangler and police followed the vehicle from a distance.

Police observed the vehicle cruising throughout the Ballston and Clarendon neighborhoods, making U-turns for no apparent reason. The vehicle then pulled into a parking spot at the Gold’s Gym near N. Pollard Street, where two of the men exited the vehicle and crossed the street. The officers stopped and continued to watch the subjects.

One of the suspects allegedly began following a lone man walking down the street. The victim turned around and the suspect then reportedly grabbed him, showed a gun and demanded money. Police say the second suspect punched the victim in the face several times until he fell to the ground. The victim handed over his wallet and cell phone to the attackers, who officers say fled in the Jeep.

Police performed a traffic stop on the Jeep and took the suspects into custody without incident.

“The officers were observing from a safe distance and when the suspects engaged in the criminal act, they responded immediately,” said Arlington County Police Department spokesman Dustin Sternbeck. “The amount of time from when the criminal act occurred and the suspects fleeing the scene was just seconds. We were able to take them into custody a short distance away.”

The victim, who had been walking home and was nearly at his building, ran inside to call police, unaware that his alleged attackers had already been apprehended.

The three subjects have been charged with robbery. They are 32-year-old Oscar Alfredo Morant Nunez of Fairfax, 19-year-old Christopher Louise Songer of Woodbridge, and 18-year-old Elder Ramirez-Miranda of Vienna.

The victim did not need to be treated for injuries and his belongings were returned to him.

To reduce the chance of the guy getting hurt or used as a hostage when the muggers panic.

Jake

Of course, if the mugee fought back like Diener, he would be dead like Diener. Cop took a chance with the victim’s life. Not an easy call. Glad they caught the perps. Victim still endured physical and emotional trauma. If the cop had asked those boys what they were up to beforehand, and spooked them away, you stopped a crime, but you didn’t get some bad boys off the street.

Minor Threat

ahhhhhhh, I see what you did there. You replaced the word “lazy cops” with a bullsh*t sentence.

Bro

I’m guessing since the suspects didn’t see the officers, they were probably well hidden at a great distance, the robbery probably only lasted around 1 minute soooo for the safety of the victim who was escaping and the tactical prespective of officers, they decided to make a felony traffic stop, catching all suspects involved ensuring the ballistic cover of their vehicles… GREAT JOB ACPD!!!

Andy

Probably safer to perform a felony stop with back up than get in a shootout.

newty25

And risk a high speed chase?

drax

It happened too fast?

Seeing it like it is

These were plain clothes officers. That is how they were able to follow the suspects without being spotted. They called in uniformed officers to conduct the traffic stop.

1RLI

Well done, ACPD.

Really

Good work ACPD!

Andy

Outstanding performance Arlington PD!!!! Here’s to those who ask” where are the police when this happens”

Way to go ACPD

Good work

Pat M

Glad to see the police were on top of this! Two violent, armed crimes happened near the same area last night. Hope this means more of a police presence near that area…

KRS

I’m surprised Advanced didn’t tow the Jeep from the Golds Gym during the few minutes they were out mugging the victim.

Jack

KRS- Hilarious.

South Side Chris

Slow clap…

Well played.

Ralph

+1

WeiQiang

that’s it. we all know what to do. put up that wall between ArlCo and FFX.

FFX pers property tax sticker round-up.

JamesE

they don’t have a tax sticker!

Scott

Not to mention the wall between DC/Arl and S.Arl/N.Arl. Or we can just put up a wall around Falls Church City and all move there.

Anonymous

Well, they are destroying all the bridges over Rt. 50, so a wall between north and south Arl isn’t that far off

DCBuff

That’ll tell PG to stay home!

Bi-Curious George

But what about Fairfax, Woodbridge, and Vienna?

Mary-Austin

hopefully it will send a message!

CrystalMikey

Way to go ACPD!

JAS

You know what’s right down the street from where all of these crimes have happened, low-income housing. Just sayin’.

This is how it should be done. Sorry to see the victim take abuse. I wonder how the scenario would have progressed if the criminals refused to stop?

Hee-Haw

They would have flipped their SUV.

ArLater

Mugshots or GTFO

…good job ACPD!

GC2

Great JOB ACPD. Just hope you had the M@*#3*R F*&%$RS in your sights in case they chose to be more violent.

dang!

that’s it. after all this crime reporting I’m getting a carry conceal permit and heading to the range to practice. sick of these scumbags picking on us. we have a bunch of d-bags but dang it, they’re OUR d-bags.

dolt

They’re not ours, they’re from PG!…uh, no wait, Vienna, Fairfax and Springfield. Still not ours.

Not Me

That one flew right by ya.

Arlington Native

I’m going to make a guess that these were the same men who robbed the woman in VA Square on Monday night. I’m glad they’ve been caught. Great work, ACPD!

Maybe Not

From this incident, the suspects are identified as “32-year-old Oscar Alfredo Morant Nunez of Fairfax, 19-year-old Christopher Louise Songer of Woodbridge, and 18-year-old Elder Ramirez-Miranda of Vienna”

From Monday night’s report: “The first subject is described as a black male, 6’0” tall and 160 pounds. The second subject is described as a black male, 5’10” tall and 200 pounds.”

Whitney Wilson

Nothing necessarily inconsistent between the two groups.

Ricardo

True. But would you bet $1000 that they were the same, even if I gave you 10:1 odds? I doubt it.

Yikes

One group had box cutters, the other had a gun. I guess it’s possible that they were the same group, but it sounds more likely that two groups of criminals were trolling for burglary victims on the same night, all within 3 blocks of my house.

Sheriff Gonna Getcha

you mean Armed Robbery victims. Big difference between that and burglary.

Carmen

Glad the criminals were caught so fast. Good job ACPD!

Jack

Is ArlCo allowed to check immigration status on the perps?

thiscantbetrue

“they then reportedly entered a Jeep Wrangler”

all criminals come by metro, right?

mike

Besides armed robbery, Arlington will probably be charging them with an additional count of needlessly using a gas-guzzling SUV when viable, car-free transit alternatives are so readily available.

Tim

Waot, I though Jeeps brought our troops home to Oprah.

Sebastian Melmoth

only Gayle has the power to bring people to Oprah

nom de guerre

Sheriff’s Office sends fingerprints to VA State Police who in turn send them to FBI who then shares them with Immigration and Customs Enforcement within the Department of Homeland Security to determine immigration status.

bman

which does nothing to deport them.

Not Me

Actually…. DHS has been setting new records for criminal alien deportations year over year since 2006. In FY2012, ICE deported 225,390 criminal aliens.

I’m guessing Ramirez-Miranda of Vienna is an illegal. Got to keep out those damn Austrians.

ltggoddess

Actually he’s not an illegal – I used to live across the street from him. I know his family well. He was a great kid when he was younger but got involved in gangs. He’s a state wrestling champ – so much talent wasted.

Ahhnold

Some of us Austrians went on to elected office. It’s not a tumor.

Amazed

Glad they caught the perps so quickly, but what about PREVENTING crime? I thought that’s was police are meant to do? Cops sat there and watched these two guys beat up the victim???? Glad they realized the bad guys were up to no good, glad they caught them, but WTF???

J

And what would you charge them with if ACPD stopped them before the robbery? People would argue that ACPD is harrassing people for no reason, afterall, they didn’t do anything wrong. Yet. Point is that the robbery was committed, they were caught, and probably will be linked to other robberies. And they will go to jail for a while. But if you stop them beforehand, then you have nothing on them. Sure they were acting suspicious, but that alone is not a reason to go to jail. It is a reason to stop somebody, but no statute allowing cops to arrest somebody for acting strange and out of place.

Andy

I bet at least one of those multiple u-turns was enough for a traffic stop. Probably at a posted intersection knowing that area, and at least likely to be a violation on the streets around there. I’m a little bothered that they watched them hurt a citizen. Sounds like they were going to keep watching them until they did something.

Deadite

Well now they get to charge these guys with armed robbery and get them off the street. It sounds like you’d rather they ticket them for an illegal U-turn and allow them to go on their merry way.

Keith

I would. if I was the guy who got punched in the faced and had to have a gun flashed at me. Some guy got assaulted because the cops didn’t act when a petty crime was being committed.

Clarendon Expatriate

The Supreme Court affirmed that the police are not legally required to prevent crime (paraphrase). The police are there to clean up afterward, catch the bad guy and possibly to deter. I’m not saying this is a bad thing or that the police should prevent crime. I’m just saying that the responsibility to protect yourself, your loved ones and your property is yours. There are multiple ways to do this.

Well, drax, in your example the police would be responding to a crime that is already in progress. So they would not be preventing it from happening in the first place.

m

The cops didn’t know they were about to commit a mugging; they thought they looked suspicious, and watched them from far enough away that the perps didn’t see them. It sounds like when the mugging took place, the cops were too far away to intervene and stop it, but they got there in time to pull the car over. The perps probably didn’t even know they had been seen doing the mugging – they probably thought they were just being stopped for some traffic violation.
,

120

+1

Jennifer

Great work ACPD! Arlington has become a crime magnet. Good to see you are more concerned with criminals than you are about speeding tickets.

Jennifer

Great work ACPD! Arlington has become a crime magnet. Good to see you are more concerned with criminals than you are with speeding tickets.

DCBuff

(To quote drax) No, it hasn’t.

Clarendon Expatriate

I’m thinking night vision binocs? How cool!

John Fontain

Bravo to the police. Some bleeding hearts might say it was unfair to “profile” these sweet, innocent fellows. I say increase the profiling!!! Use common sense. Watch those who look out of place or who are acting suspiciously.

drax

You have no idea whatsoever whether they were profiled based on their race, John.

m

I don’t see anyone on this thread saying they were “profiled,” or that the police treated the suspects unfairly in any way. John is arguing against a straw man – or a person of straw, if you prefer.

Ross

The driver, 32-year-old Oscar Alfredo Morant Nunez, was just arrested on 8/25/2012 for Driving with a Revoked or Suspended License. However, the Assistant Commonwealth Attorney dismissed the case in Arlington County General District Court on 11/26/2012. It was a Class 1 Misdemeanor. He could have been put away for a year. However, they let him go. Good job Office of the Commonwealth’s Attorney. They all are doing a horrible job. Theophani (Theo) Stamos needs to be fired.

Mary-Austin

Agreed about Stamos.
Take the witness she summoned in the Deiner trial. Poor guy had to take a 20 hour flight from Burma just to say he saw two guys near the scene that he couldn’t identify. This on the tax payers’ dime of course. Real helpful Theo!

Quoth the Raven

So you think that in a murder trial the prosecutor shouldn’t call all available witnesses? Sorry, but that’s just not correct.

Jake

C’mon. No one goes to jail for driving on a revoked license. If they did, you’d need to build a few extra prisons to house them all. License get revoked for all kinds of reasons, most all of which are non-violent (failure to pay tickets, lack of insurance, etc).

Familiar w/VA Courts

Actually, people go to jail for driving on revoked licenses pretty often in northern virginia. Usually they only get 3-5 days, but they generally DO get some time, especially if it’s a second (or worse) offense.

umm

A majority of the defendants charged with driving on a suspended license were “without notice”… The general course in those cases is to dismiss them if the defendant proves compliance in court (meaning they got their license back after they paid whatever fines and/or fees they owed for some previous traffic or other court conviction). It is not a “horrible” job, but the common practice because most of these defendants are not criminals, but often a typical citizen who forgot to pay a ticket or update their address with the DMV after moving. You failed to share any specific facts for the case cited beyond your general web search of the VA courts site records.

Ross

Theo, is that you?

Marlington

Great job ACPD! Thanks for the eagle eyes!

Dirty Harry

Me? Two words. Concealed weapon, punk. Ok, three. Sue me.

NVA

Nice work ACPAD! Please continue patrolling that area – crime incidents appear to be increasing around the Ballston/Virginia Square area.

Roquer

Another OUTSTANDING job by Arlington Police!!!

R. Griffon

Awesome job ACPD. Making us proud and keeping us safe.

And for those asking why the police “allowed” this to happen, just how close do you think the police were standing by? Far enough that the bad guys didn’t see ‘em. A mugging can be over in about 10 seconds – no way for them to even get there. I’m sorry this guy got held up and assaulted, but this way 3 scumbags are on their way to the clink. Big win for all of us.

Seeing it like it is

Nice job ACPD TAC!

Parkington

Good old North Arlington, always good for some crime.

Swag

Wonder if the cops would have been suspicious had all three been white.

Guessing not.

Quoth the Raven

If three white guys had been acting like that, then indeed the cops would have been equally suspicioius. Cops are aware, you know, that white people commit crimes too. And what’s your point, anyway? Should the cops have said to themselves, “Well, we can’t profile here, so let’s just ignore this obviously suspicious situation. It’s doughnut time!”

In other words, keep the fanciful racial commentary to yourself, unless you do in fact have a point. And here, you don’t appear to have one.

NOTB

+ 0x29a

xarl

guessing only from the Spanish-sounding names, how do we know they weren’t white? Hispanic/Latino is not a color

John Fontain

I knew we’d have a least one poster mad that cops “unfairly” followed some non-whites, even though they were acting suspiciously.

xarl

where does the article say they were non-whites?

Quoth the Raven

Oh come on. Given their names, is it not fair to assume they’re Hispanic?

xarl

Hispanic is not a color. Some Hispanics are Caucasion.

Francisco Franco

People with Hispanic names can be white. Just ask King Juan Carlos.

xarl

from their names–Hispanic/Latino maybe….but where does the article say they are non-white?

Not Me

I guess you just missed the part in the story where they pulled out a gun and punched someone in the face and robbed them?

drax

Key word: “guessing.”

You have no idea, Swag.

I’m guessing otherwise, since thousands of latinos walk around our streets every day and I don’t think cops follow them around.

And the cops proved correct about these three. Pretty good police work.

So?

Assuming your wild accusations were right, then so what? Tell you what – why don’t you post a link to the last mugging that occurred in ARL with white suspects. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Then after you do, we’ll compare that to the number of reports for non-whites. Care to take bets on the resulting ratio? The police are doing their jobs.

And the last time I checked, the police weren’t breaking any laws by FOLLOWING someone. Show me a false arrest based on profiling and then we’ll talk.

Mike

The cops may have been suspicious because of the suspicious names.
The second perp apparently has some gender-confusion issues: he has a boy’s name (Christopher) but also a girl’s name (Louise). At least the cops figured out that, as the old saying goes, it’s not the Singer, it’s the Song(er).
And the third one is called “Elder,” even though he is the youngest of the three. But they didn’t have to Mirandize him — he already is a Miranda.

Snarl

I like the way you think–refreshing

bman

if the police would have stopped them earlier BEFORE the crime when they were speeding through neighborhoods and doing u-turns, this guy wouldn’t have been robbed.

Anonymous

You’re right, THIS guy wouldn’t have been robbed. They’d have gotten a BS traffic ticket and robbed the next person to come along, after the police had driven away happy with themselves over writing one more traffic ticket and generating a million more ArlNow complaints about how all the police do are enforce BS traffic laws.

non arligtonian

let’s follow your logic about stopping the crime before it occured then they would be on their merry way after being briefly detained. I am sure tomorrow they will resume their search for another victim which woulld probably end in a deener like case. if you guys think you could do the job i am sure the PD is hiring otherwise shut up and be greateful other people are laying their life on the line to protect you.

Right

Right. Because it’d be MUCH better for these guys to get a $50 traffic ticket so that they can go and rob somebody else, maybe even on the same night right after getting a ticket. That’s WAY better. As long as this particular guy didn’t get robbed.